Review by Ian Keogh

In the Ultimate universe Hawkeye is more like Bullseye in terms of ability. He uses a bow and arrow, but his power set is an unerring aim. He never misses. It’s a useful, but limited skill among the Ultimates, so to begin this solo outing Jonathan Hickman uses him as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s single person mission specialist, along the way explaining those powers and Hawkeye’s past.

The mission is in Thailand, where state sponsored biological engineers have developed a virus eliminating the mutant gene and spread it across the planet, and also a serum inducing random super powers when injected. What wasn’t taken into account was that injecting enemies of the state gives them greater means to fight back, and things have spun out of control.

Rafa Sandoval delivers page after page of excellent action art, his Hawkeye perhaps a little too muscularly exaggerated, but distinctive in his red goggles and dominating any page on which he appears. Sandoval also provides full populated environments. If a tank needs to be destroyed, Sandoval places it at the head of an entire column, and the new super powered characters he creates aren’t designed to be drawn at speed, but to look good no matter the complications.

Given the sheer power level of the threat, it’s unreasonable to expect Hawkeye to deal with it solo, so he’s supplied with back-up, at which point it’s no longer a Hawkeye solo story. This seems to defeat the purpose, as the other characters, well drawn by Sandoval, occupy a fair number of pages. The final chapter makes good use of someone introduced by Grant Morrison to the X-Men’s world, and repurposed here, but the ending disappoints, not resolving anything and seemingly just a lead-in to Hickman’s Ultimates series.